Monday, September 14, 2009

"Nobody Ever Wants to Fight," said Dalton

The two big entertainment news stories right now are Patrick Swayze being dead, and Kanye West being a drunk arse. Edgar Wright already said everything that needed to be said about how awesome Swayze is, and I can contribute no more than the title of this post. But Monday morning, looking through my tweets and facebookings about Kanye’s interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, I had a moment flashing to another possible world where I was a writer for Saturday Night Live.

My imagined sketch making fun of Kanye goes like this. Barack Obama is delivering an important speech about nuclear weapons reduction treaties, universally accessible health insurance, and why domestic violence is bad. Then Kanye West storms the stage and starts yelling into the microphone about how Obama is the greatest president of all time, and will be until Kanye himself is elected to the post. The secret service men grab Kanye and are about to pull him offstage when Obama asks them to hold him. And the president very nicely asks Kanye why he interrupted him, Taylor Swift, and Vladimir Putin. But Kanye says he doesn’t want to talk about Putin.

Some wavy lines flash back to Vladimir Putin making a speech about why Russia is awesome, choking Ukraine dry of oil, and bringing Europe to its knees. Then Kanye West storms the stage and starts yelling into the microphone about how Beyoncé released a better video than Putin this year, when all the Russian PM could do was cavort with a horse in the countryside.

As Putin judo chops Kanye in the neck and puts him in a headlock, some more wavy lines flash back to Putin’s video shoot. Putin has his shirt off, and while feeding a horse, talks to the camera about how he is the only man manly enough to rule Russia. Then Kanye West jumps into the shot, talking about how boring his video is, that Barack Obama is in better shape than Putin, and that Hype Williams could have made a better propaganda video. For one thing, Hype would have included a man dancing in a panda suit for no reason. Having surprised Putin, Kanye is able to steal Putin’s horse and ride into the distance.

Some wavy lines bring us back to the press conference in Russia, where the still headlocked Kanye admits that he gave the horse to Jamie Foxx as a birthday present. Putin throws Kanye to his own phalanx of bodyguards, and says they are going on a little trip to Los Angeles, to visit one Jamie Foxx.